(John Vibes) In late 2011, hackers managed to crack into the databases of the global intelligence firm Stratfor and found a large volume of information that connected the firm with military contractors, government agencies, and confidential informants.

In the first months of 2012, these documents were made public by Wikileaks and included millions of emails, which showed Stratfor’s web of informers, pay-off structure, and other vital information about their covert operations.

(Robert Pear) In a surprising rebuff to President Trump and Republican leaders, the House derailed a bill on Tuesday that would have given patients with terminal illnesses a right to try unproven experimental treatments.

The bill was considered under special fast-track procedures that required a two-thirds majority for passage, and it fell short. When the roll was called, 259 House members supported the bill, and 140 opposed it.

Most of the opposition came from Democrats, who said the bill gave false hope to patients and could actually endanger people dying of incurable diseases, because it would undermine protections provided by the Food and Drug Administration.

(Nick Sibilla)Ever since she was a little girl, Fatou Diouf has been braiding hair. And for almost two decades, Fatou has turned that tradition into a vocation by working professionally as a licensed natural hair stylist in Tennessee.

“I never did any other job but hair braiding my whole life,” she said. “I cannot recall a time when I did not know how.”

But in recent years, Tennessee has forced Fatou to pay a staggering $16,000 in fines, simply because she employed workers who did not have a government license to braid hair.

(J.D. Tuccille) Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin wants limits on virtual currencies, like Bitcoin, that help people keep their financial lives private from folks like him. Senator Dianne Feinstein wants government regulation of political speech by foreign agents—or maybe just by people with whom she disagrees. Gun control activists want more restrictions with which to threaten peaceful gun owners so that violent predators who break laws will have more things to ignore.

If ever there was a “there oughta be a law moment,” we’re living in it. At least, we’re living in one of all too many such moments. Because people are forever looking to the law as the solution to the ills they perceive in the world around them—often only to spackle over the failures of the previous round of laws. In the process, they’re forever forgetting that laws are usually nothing more than codified prejudices, imposed against resistant populations, by sometimes incompetent and often corrupt enforcers.